In the “Communist Manifesto”, Karl Marx discusses the issues and challenges the lifestyle was in the 1840s and hopes to prompt the people and proletariats to go against the bourgeoisie. There was a major divide between the different classes: the bourgeoisie, the proletariats, the peasants, and the petty bourgeoisie. Karl Marx particularly goes against the bourgeoisie class because he feels that they have too much power in society and thus have too much control over what happens politically, economically, and socially. Essentially, the bourgeoisie in Karl Marx’s point of view is seen as the perpetrators of why society is deemed bad at that point in time and wants the proletariat class to form a union in order to overthrow the bourgeoisie.

The bourgeoisie class essentially runs the means of production, meaning technically have all the power in society. They are in control of wages and the immediate power over workers, institutions, and the economic power in society, as “the modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.” (The Communist Manifesto, 14). Marx clearly claims that the root of modern-day society’s problems is because the bourgeoisie class implemented new systems due to industrialization that only benefit them and not the rest of society. The bourgeoisie is in charge of most things, thus making it unfair to the rest which Marx wants the proletariats to realize and make a change.  

The bourgeoisie class wants to use innovation and industrialization to their advantage in order to improve society and grow the economy with better production rates, trade, and to overall reinvent the economy. This class created a feudal system, “which industrial production was monopolized by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets.” (The Communist Manifesto, 15) which then lead to no division of labor as, “The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class.” (The Communist Manifesto, 15). This class was able to resolve personal worth and changed it into an exchange value which lead to free trade. The bourgeoisie class basically exploited the system by making it better for them so they would get more money and the otheres are left behind. For example, occupations like, “the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science,” (The Communist Manifesto, 16) were turned into paid wage laborers, meaning they get minimum wage when they should be getting paid much higher. They have also changed the meaning of family relation and, “reduced family relation to a mere money relation” (Communist Manifesto, 16), meaning that all that family was, was a monetary value rather than a person you are related to. Moreover, people who aren’t in the bourgeoisie are the class of laborers who live as so long as they find work just like a machine. Their wages depend on the cost of production as a result of industrialization therefore, if the work increases, the wages decrease. Marx claims that this class of people, the proletariats, are slaves to the bourgeoisie because they are would not be able to survive if they without them as they control their every move with the incentive of getting money.  

Karl Marx also mentions the positive changes and advances the bourgeoisie class has done which was crediting them with the start and development of industrialization and urbanization and as well as getting rid of feudalism. Industrialization and urbanization have helped the economy immensely due to this class as, “the discovery of America paved the way,” (The Communist Manifesto, 15) for a new world market. Marx also discusses that “this development has, in its turn, reacted to on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed.” (The Communist Manifesto, 15). Although Marx does not like the bourgeoisie class, he still credits them with the development of society and how it has improved, he still, however, believes that they did a good job at increasing the economy’s power. 

All in all, Karl Marx believes that the bourgeoisie needs to be taken over by the proletariat class in order to restore how society was back in 1840 when the class structure didn’t determine your wages and the amount of work you had to do. Since the industrial revolution and urbanization has occurred, everything involving society involves some sort of monetary value so your position in society is very important because it affects your livelihood and your family.